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i feel so trapped!!!!

my bestfriend is in a relationship that is getting worse and worse by the day. her boyfriend has been getting really depressed all of a sudden and he is starting to get suicidal thoughts. lately he has been keeping her up until almost 2:00 in the morning talking to her. she feels so afraid to leave him alone for one second because we all think that he will try to kill himself. in school, we have to practically walk on eggshells around him because he is so sensitive, and even the littlest things will set him off. he gets mad at all of us (especially my bestfriend) and refuses to talk to any of us for hours at a time. one time he was so depressed that he said he "didnt deserve to eat". im so afraid that he is going to kill himself one of these days. none of us can say anything to him or to an adult because he'll get so angry and we dont want him to hurt himself. but i know that if i dont say anything, then things will just continue to get worse what should i do? i feel so trapped! please help

Hey, sounds like quite a difficult situation you're in. If you don't want to go straight to an adult, could you try and talk to him and suggest he go and see a professional? Try and explain to him that they can be really helpful for some people and they might offer a way out of this. Maybe you could just get him to agree to talk to someone and seek the help for him. One thing I would advise against is not telling anybody; these things can sometimes be "nipped in the bud" in early stages and sometimes have the potential to get worse. I know it's a difficult thing to do but I would suggest talking to him about help to start with - it might be for the best. Hope I helped and good luck =)

thanks for your advice :) i tried it, but it didnt seem to work. he is not getting worse at the moment, but he isnt getting better either. do you think i should wait? or should i go to an adult? its better to be safe than sorry, and i really dont want to be sorry. do you think that would be the best thing to do right now?

I get that your friend would want to help her boyfriend, and that's perfectly reasonable and a great thing to do for someone, but I want to stress that she should not feel like she is responsible for fixing things. In the end he is the one who has to make things better for himself, no one else can really do that. They can offer support, etc, but not actually change the way he sees things.

I've been in a situation similar to this before, except with a close friend. It's really, really difficult to deal with because there's this fight between self preservation and helping that person you care about. The problem I've found is that the depressed person tends to rely way too heavily on their social support. It's really, really important for depressed people to learn how to cope on their own. It's something I struggled with for a long time. In the end, depression is an internal struggle. It requires a lot of personal discovery. Learning what triggers you, how to cope with those emotions, how to continue on with life despite them. After a while it becomes easier to do things despite the emotion, and following that the emotion itself starts to be less crushing. It's like in learning to carry on with life there's a new strength found that suppressses all the negative emotion and suddenly it doesn't feel so bad anymore.

If you are going to tell an adult, I suggest you tell one who can actually do something. A parent would be the most likely to be effective (that is if they are willing to take him to see a professional). I'd strongly suggest that you do tell someone if 1) You don't believe that he can deal with things on his own or 2) If you think he will kill himself. There are far more reasons for telling someone, but considering how he told you not to, I think these are the important ones to take into consideration. An angry and alive friend is far better than a dead one.

Hey, Tell someone!!! Being quite is the worst thing. Ive been throug depression and all i wanted was someone to hear me. Get him some help!!!What ever you do is good just dont say quite. ASk him what wrong and if u could help him. If ur a beliver show him the truth of God's love.

thank you soooo much for your advice! it really helped me a lot, and i tried it, and now things are starting to get a little bit better. my friends and i went to one of our previous teachers that really connected with kids, and she got the school involved and they called his parents. it must have worked, because now he has been getting a lot better :D again, thank you sooooo much you're a life saver!!!

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